Before you press play
Watch if
You've seen the 2021 film, you want two hours of slick, bloody fights, and you don't need the story to go deep.
Wait if
You haven't seen the 2021 film yet, or you want jokes that land and a story that stays with you.
Mortal Kombat II moves fast, looks good and never gets boring. What it never decides is whose story it is. The cast is so crowded that nobody gets to be the lead, and most of the jokes fall flat. It's a 3. It comes close to a 3.5 on craft, but the story stays on the surface.
Do you need to watch Mortal Kombat (2021) first?
You can follow the broad plot without it. But you'll get far more out of this if you've seen the first film.
The first film set up why this tournament matters and who Earthrealm's champions are. This one gives you the basic rules: each flame stands for a fighter, and the tournament ends when one side runs out of champions. What it doesn't do is make you feel what each fight puts at risk. Come in cold and you can keep score, but the fights won't mean much.
The characters work the same way. Take Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and her energy blasters, or Jax (Mehcad Brooks) with his metal arms. If you've seen the first film, you'll understand them better. If you haven't, they're simply there.
Fans of the first film get their own catch. The more attached you were to its lead, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), the more sharply you'll feel how far this sequel shifts its focus.
That matters more here than it would for Spider-Man. A new Spider-Man film comes with enough hype that people who skipped the last one catch up first. Mortal Kombat doesn't have that pull, so plenty of people will walk in cold and get a thinner film than the fans do.
Karl Urban as Johnny Cage
Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) is on the posters and in the ads, and the present-day story soon turns to him. He's a washed-up action star. He spent his life building a career, and now people treat him as if he doesn't matter.
That's the most serious idea in the film: a man looking back, years later, at what all that work added up to. It's a good idea. It doesn't land, because it needs more time and attention than a two-hour fight film can give it.
His arc is also one we've seen many times. At first he wants no part in the fight. Slowly he starts paying attention. Eventually he steps up and his power arrives. He gets there, but there isn't much story built around the trip.
He's also the comic relief, and most of the jokes don't land. A few are fine, some are really bad, and nearly all of them have been done many times before. They're there to add a bit of humour, not to get real laughs.
Adeline Rudolph as Kitana
Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) is the heart of the film, and the thread that holds together best. As a child she watches Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) kill her father, and she grows up as Kahn's adopted daughter.
Her story works where Johnny's doesn't because it's personal. You see where her grief comes from, and almost anyone can understand losing a parent, even if it's never happened to them. Johnny's crisis is about looking back on a whole career. That's a heavier idea, and this film doesn't have room for it.
Jade (Tati Gabrielle) is close to a sister to her. She spends most of the film in the background, but gets one of its best moments late on.
The villain is simple. Shao Kahn wants to win the tournament, conquer Earthrealm and use a magic amulet to make himself an immortal god. That's it, and the film doesn't pretend otherwise.
Too many characters
This is the film's real problem. There are too many characters, and there isn't time to give each of them a story.
In the first film, it felt like Cole's story. Here it feels as if everyone is a supporting character. Johnny Cage and Kitana get the focus, but neither of them gets the depth a lead would.
Some characters get plenty of screen time and little to do with it. Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) gets some of the best action in the film, and his fire powers look great, but he barely moves the story forward. Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), the God of Thunder who is meant to guide everyone, is out of action for about half of it.
Sonya, Jax and Raiden already played their real part in the first film. Here nothing pushes their stories forward. They're just there. That isn't automatically a flaw, since a sequel can let old faces step back. But next to the first film, they've gone from driving the plot to filling out the cast.
The crowding may come straight from the games, where the roster is the point. It's also why this would work better as a TV series: give it episodes and you'd have time to care about the story, not just the fights.
Fights, gore and effects
The fights are well choreographed and good to look at. Liu Kang's fire, Sonya's blasters, Kitana's fans: every power looks distinct and reads clearly on screen. The costumes, the realms and the powers are all really well done.
But the fights don't hit as hard as they should. They don't carry the weight you'd expect from a film built around a tournament.
It's R-rated and it uses it: blood everywhere, skulls crushed. For a Mortal Kombat film, that's the right call.
The effects aren't blockbuster-perfect, and this isn't an Avengers budget. What they look like is a sharper, finer version of the effects in the old games, and that seems to be the point. If you grew up playing them, it looks right.
The tone swings between grim and goofy. In most films that would be a problem. In an adaptation of a fighting game, it fits.
Is Mortal Kombat II worth watching?
Yes, as long as you go in expecting a game adaptation. Watch the 2021 film first if you can, because this one is built for people who already know these fighters. You'll be entertained for two hours. You just won't walk away with many thoughts about why anyone did what they did.
Cole Young. Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) kills Cole Young (Lewis Tan), the lead of the 2021 film, during the tournament. The first film spent its whole running time building him up. Killing him off here and handing the spotlight to Johnny Cage leaves you asking what the point of all that was. Game of Thrones killed characters people were rooting for too, but those deaths were shocks that pushed the story forward. This one just looks odd.
Raiden. A revived Kung Lao cuts down Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), and the God of Thunder's power is drained into the Amulet of Shinnok. That's enough to make Shao Kahn immortal. Raiden spends half the film out of action and only recovers once the amulet is destroyed.
Kung Lao and Liu Kang. Quan Chi (Damon Herriman), a necromancer, raises fallen fighters to serve Kahn, and Kung Lao (Max Huang), the fighter with the razor-edged hat, is one of them. He and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) are close to brothers, so when they face off it's one of the best-looking fights in the film, and the one with the most feeling behind it.
Kano. Kano (Josh Lawson), the man with the laser eye, was a villain in the first film. Brought back by Quan Chi, he ends up fighting alongside Earthrealm. He's more anti-hero than villain now, and it suits him.
Jax and Liu Kang. Shao Kahn kills Jax (Mehcad Brooks). In the final fight he impales Liu Kang too, but Liu Kang doesn't simply die. He says his journey is to bring Kung Lao back, tells the others this is not the end, and vanishes in flames. Whether he died or became something more is left open on purpose. Screenwriter Jeremy Slater has said as much.
Johnny Cage. Johnny (Karl Urban) finally gets his powers. He breaks the amulet with a glowing green kick that fans of the games will recognise, and ends the film with his confidence back.
Kitana's revenge. Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) has been secretly feeding information to Raiden all along. In the end she faces Shao Kahn, the man who killed her father, and her spinning fans carve through his skull, cutting his head into pieces. Watching her father die, training, and finally killing his killer: it's the best-earned moment in the film. She ends it as queen.
Jade. Jade (Tati Gabrielle) finally turns on Shao Kahn and smashes his emblem on her staff. Then you see what that staff can really do.
Death may not be final. By the end the heroes have Quan Chi as their prisoner, and Raiden's plan is simple: "It's time to bring them home." Jax, at least, could come back. The film never says who can and can't return, but it leaves the feeling that very few of these deaths are meant to stick.
What's next. There's no post-credits scene. Jeremy Slater started writing a third film in 2025, but Warner Bros. hasn't greenlit it, and in August 2026 director Simon McQuoid said it was "still going through its life cycle" and he wasn't sure where it stood.
Bright Bulbs
- Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) is the heart of the film: a personal story anyone can feel, built on watching her father die when she was a child.
- The costumes and realms look polished, and every character's power reads clearly in a fight.
- The effects look like the old games, only sharper, which is the right call for a fighting-game adaptation.
Dull Bulbs
- Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) leads the posters, but his reluctant-hero arc is overly familiar and most of his jokes have been done many times before.
- The film explains how the tournament works but rarely makes a single fight feel like it matters, especially if you skipped the 2021 film.
- With this many characters, nobody gets the depth of a lead, and the returning favourites from the first film get little to do.
Cast
- Karl Urban as Johnny Cage
- Adeline Rudolph as Kitana
- Tati Gabrielle as Jade
- Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade
- Mehcad Brooks as Jax
- Josh Lawson as Kano
- Ludi Lin as Liu Kang
- Tadanobu Asano as Raiden
- Martyn Ford as Shao Kahn
- Lewis Tan as Cole Young
- Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi / Scorpion
- Joe Taslim as Bi-Han
- Max Huang as Kung Lao
- Damon Herriman as Quan Chi
- Chin Han as Shang Tsung
- CJ Bloomfield as Baraka
- Ana Thu Nguyen as Sindel
- Desmond Chiam as King Jerrod